


The Pilot

by Radiolaria



Series: Meta Essays [11]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived From onaperduamedee Blog, Aviation, Character Analysis, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Flying, Gen, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, Survivor Guilt, more like anti-survivorship bias, tangentially but re-reading this the undercurrent is clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 17:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16937256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: The pilot's job is to bring everyone home, not to be the hero.A character study of Melinda May, exploring her sense of responsibility and heroism.





	The Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on Jul. 17, 2015 on [melindamaymatters](http://melindamaymatters.tumblr.com/post/124106021688/i-hope-you-dont-mean-captain-that-you-expect) as part of a project celebrating the character.

> “I hope you don’t mean, Captain, that you expect to come out of the war alive ?”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, _Flight over Arras_

_Melinda May matters to me as a way home._

Melinda, with her ghosts that communicate through shaving cream rather than anger, her look back at the Providence base she was quitting, acquitting her team in the process, her reasoned collaboration with the new, disruptive, order in place at S.H.I.E.L.D., her red bikini joyously packed after hell finished breaking loose - Melinda May reminds me that I am never stranded where I am.

For me, she embodies hope and agency, this belief that if all else should fail, let there be a way home, an “out”, a “somewhere else”. _Where control and choice stand a chance._

The entire world cannot be a battlefield.

She hopes to come out of the war alive, and she does when she needs to. At Melinda’s core, under the quietness, hope is a _sine qua non_ : the possibility of change, of balance, of home is irrevocable.

And the pilot’s job is solely to get you home.

When I see Melinda May’s familiar silhouette on the screen, I know that Skye and the others will eventually find a way home. Because Melinda knows the pathways, through winding gorges and sky-less traps, to get through and back. Be it monitoring Coulson, joining Gonzales, removing herself from a situation: these are parts of an itinerary, controls on the dashboard, to lead her crew. And she makes sure they are inhabited by the same self-reliance. Not being a hero; being steady and strong and unrestrained. She teaches Skye, in gestures contained and precise, the pressure properly applied to save and sustain her to the end of the ride.

Melinda doesn’t leave people stranded, including herself.

“Do good and get home safe”, as Andrew would say.

Melinda reminds me that in life your job is to “do good”, but not at your expense: at the end of the day, you need to get yourself home as well. Never to burn bridges or the ground you live on. You don’t _buy_ victory with losses and certainly not yours. Comes the time to make sacrifices, they will be made, yet _there will be a home_ _to come back to_ , a core of hope and agency that is you.

Bahrain changed her, naturally, rewrote her course, and she flew across lonely and ragged landscapes, for years. But she found a way home, eventually —to a different kind of haven, sheltering monkeys and floating cars, noise and funk. A place for nurturing hackers into agents, for challenging her boundaries, for leading and conceding, for building, breaking, rebuilding and at last willingly breaking bonds.

A place of hope and change, somewhere she was not stranded.

This is why Melinda May left Providence, crossing the frozen wilderness to save herself from what was brewing and poisoning the crew. And a year after, that is why she is leaving for the sun, for time alone, for herself. Melinda manoeuvres best when all the paths are kept open. One such path is herself. Keeping it secured is essential.

And it matters to me to be told that I deserve to be kept secured, to be self-reliant, to have somewhere else. _I_ have paths to choose from. I have a right to believe _I_ am worth being such an essential path. I am not a tool to my future. I can get myself out, and home. I matter.

Melinda May doesn’t let herself be cornered; she matters. She is prepared to be ever moving, but steadily, strongly, as the world would not stop to accommodate her. Like an airplane, fighting forces on a sky limitless with paths. She’s gliding, burning fuel, day-time, but never away. She has to get her crew and herself home.

Heroes, at times, burn bridges, the ground, themselves. Heroism believes that wars require human sacrifices, that victory is _paid_ with blows, wounds and deaths, that selflessness is the be-all and end-all of fighting.

Heroism is a tyrant and Melinda May is not a hero.

She’s a pilot —she brings people back home.

Melinda has become her own secured path


End file.
